There is also no way to make our homes even remotely “sterile.” The cleanest house is not sterile, we are still exposed daily to germs in our environments, whether or not one’s house is “cleaner” than the neighbor’s.
I think this is the point though. The first ten years aren’t the last two and if the theory is plausible, it’s the last two keeping up the immune system that count.
More common might have kept the other two thirds out of the allergists office. Personally, I don’t know any “town dweller” who has changed their ways to getting more involved with the outdoors. Those who went to parks for vacations stayed in the typical tourist areas and were only there for a week or two, not a lifestyle change. I’m sure there are some, but I doubt it’s the majority. When people come to our farm they like to look at the ponies, but they never help clean the barn.
True, but are they the same germs as those out in the woods or in a barn? Do they truly keep the occupant’s immune system up just because there are some they always see? Two thirds haven’t developed more allergies, so maybe?
It’d be an interesting study to see if there’s any correlation IMO. I also hope they’re looking into data to know if vaxxes vs unvaxxed people have more/less allergy development, because the vaxxes do challenge the immune system. This couples with folks who got/didn’t get Covid and who kept a normalish life vs not.
There are many ways this could get looked at - which of course, makes it not such an easy study. Nonetheless, it would be quite interesting and useful going forward.
I was wondering about this! My DC and a friend both had bad reactions to their 2nd dose and their booster (one had a trial vaccine with Pfizer booster, the other had Pfizer with Moderna booster).
I wondered if that means their immune system is over achieving and would do well against covid…or if covid would be realllly hard on them.
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My kids (the less sterile home).
And my kids. Haha.
I will say my kids were rarely sick growing up! 
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Last I heard it was all conjecture. I don’t know of any way they can really test it to know. I know he’s told me before it’s not usually Covid that kills unless people are frail. It’s the body’s immune reaction afterward. My guess if they’re thinking if the immune system works that way against a vaccine, it would do worse with Covid since pretty much all actual side effects are worse in patients who have Covid (more blood clots causing strokes and things).
One of the saddest stories was about a “boy” in his twenties (similar age to my guy) who had a bad case, was intubated, got over Covid, and then they weren’t able to wake him up (for a week). They weren’t sure if they would be able to or not. Due to the nature of residency my guy had to move on from having him as a patient, so he/I never heard the end of the story. Covid is responsible for his death, but not directly.
Mine too, though of course, we’re just data points.
I see correlations at school too, but nothing official, so could be confirmation bias.
This is nothing new really. When I was a young mom I had an older friend who had been confined to a wheelchair post polio. She saw me trying to sterilize everything for my new baby and told me to stop. In her experience, it was the kids (like her) from super clean houses who got bad cases of polio. Those from the dirtier places didn’t. She was sure there was something to it related to the immune system being kept up fighting other things. I’ve never forgotten it and adjusted accordingly. Whether true or not, my guys have no allergies and rarely get sick, so no regrets.
One point to note though, there are times - like with Poison Ivy - where this is not true. My youngest thought if he exposed himself to Poison Ivy a little bit here and there he’d eventually have full immunity from it. Not so. The more one exposes themselves to it the worse it gets due to the reaction in the body.
At the beginning I recall folks being worried about which way Covid would go. Would a second infection be worse or better? I believe they’re usually better with some exceptions, but I haven’t heard much about it lately.
To figure out which way I wanted to go with vaccines/boosters I definitely looked at the data and played the odds. I plan to continue to do so TBH.
Yes, excellent points.
I do know that adults develop allergies in later years - I developed several in my 40’s after a lifetime of no allergies (all well before the pandemic) - so I would think nothing of it had the allergist mentioned above not said that there were a lot more lately. But who knows - maybe people didn’t go to the allergist the first year or so of the pandemic so it just seems like more now - or maybe it is related to COVID/vaccines. Or maybe it’s just one anecdotal remark, related to climate change (which is also creating allergies in areas that are warming). Who knows.
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Yep. The story of Martin Kamen, co-discoverer of carbon-14, is instructive. Fellow didn’t pay enough attention to politics and bureaucracy and suspicious minds as the Cold War got rolling, and among the things that torpedoed his career and got his passport cancelled for a while was that he appeared – to military/FBI types who knew nothing about science – to know too much and have access to secrets he shouldn’t have. All he was doing was spotting the obvious to anyone with his physics & chemistry background, dot-connecting. And then letting the thoughts come out of his mouth in earshot of these guys. To the mil/police types it didn’t seem possible or reasonable that anyone could just figure things out like that.
You get a few feet away from the lab and politics takes over quickly, @MarylandJOE. @MWolf is correct: there’s a limited number of ways this could’ve happened and we already know what they are. Which one it is doesn’t matter for prevention. If it’s natural, we already have lunatic wildlife/virus-tracking global protocols in place which will still never be able to track and scan every organism on the planet. If it’s lab (and I don’t think it is for the reason above), we already have safety protocols and human-error breaches, and it’s not like China’s the only one doing very dangerous experiments. We pioneered a lot of them and continue to invent new ones. And we don’t tell them some of what we’re doing, either. You want big burly science and defense, you run risks, play with people’s lives. You ought to see some of the forensics work we do to track other nations’ experiments, not that we can do a lot about it in the end except use it as a playing card, once in a while, and for intelligence.
And if this is an intelligence matter? Then oops. Cat out of bag. Rather expensively.
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I believe there is research that shows living in close proximity to livestock results in fewer allergies.
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As the parent of a person with severe immunodeficiency, I just want to interject this into the discussion : I “know” that I am not responsible for his medical issues, but can’t stop feeling badly when people throw around anecdotal confidence and those implied "if only"s…if only we had a dirtier house? more pets? less cleaning?
Carry on, interesting ideas all around.
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I think any parent of a child with physical or d mental issues has those thoughts. I know I do. Ive had to let it go and just look forward.
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Certainly don’t feel bad. I was exposed to pets, dirt, my aunt’s farm. I have 3 autoimmune diseases. I have a parent who is an infectious disease specialist (actually trained a year behind Dr. Fauci). When I was diagnosed with one of these diseases, a physician said it’s postulated to have an as yet unknown viral etiology. Sometimes I wonder if I was exposed to a virus my parent brought home. We’ll never know. Point is, we don’t know, there’s no evidence, people are just speculating. I bet we’ll never know in our lifetimes, so don’t ever think look back and wonder if maybe you did something wrong. The fact that you are means to me that you are the opposite - a great parent and your child is lucky to have you!
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I suspect most people have health (physical and/or mental) related “if only’s” in their lives that they deal with. If not for one thing/person, then for another. I know I do. Nobody is perfect. Nobody knows everything. For many of our “correct” decisions, luck in involved as much or more than knowledge.
But it’s also human nature to look at what knowledge/data is discovered over the years and want to discuss/share it. None of it will matter for our kids who are no longer young, but it might matter for our grandkids.
Both H and I have health issues now due to the diets (and other things) we were raised with. We don’t blame our parents. Who knew at the time? But we’ve changed our diets with the knowledge we’ve learned and I hope our kids/grandkids will be better off for it.
Sending 
though. As I said, H and I live with some if only’s too. They can be depressing if we dwell on them, so we try not to do it often.
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I’m reading An Eloquent Defense…The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System’ by Matt Richter. Written in 2019 - the Before Times.
There is a discussion of the Amish and Hutterites - descendants of similar genetic stock and leading similar lifestyles - self isolating communities. The biggest difference between the two is exposure to ‘crud’.
The Amish practice ‘traditional farming’. The Hutterites live on large and highly industrialized communal farms.
The Amish have ‘dirty’ households with lots of allergens from dogs, cats, dust-mites and yes…the occasional cockroach. 40% of Amish households have these allergens.
The Hutterites have ‘clean’ households. 10% of households have the above allergens.
The Amish children had fewer allergies and fewer eosinophil cells - which tend to cause an inflammatory response.
The Hutterites on the other hand had a higher numbers of these cells - with corresponding higher rates of asthma, eczema and other autoimmune issues.
Our intense desire to sterilize and sanitize our daily environment will most likely lead to more autoimmune issues in the near future.
training the immune system is important. Oh, and the author is a proponent of ‘immunizing the heck’ out of kids - since that is a planned form of immune system training.
Now…go forth and eat buggers :). (Yes, that question is seriously discussed…)
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My kids grew up on acreage, with horses and other animals plus lots and lots of dirt, swimming in a pond, etc. Two have less than robust immune systems and one has allergies, if the dirt thing is true, I’d hate to know what things would be like for them without all that dirt!
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@somemom, there are no doubt many other causes of allergies and immune deficiencies. The human body is complex. My wife was a premature baby. This is thought to cause allergies and respiratory deficiencies (which my wife has). But, her sisters who were not premature and they also have respiratory allergies. She is dyslexic (like her father, brother and one of the sisters but not the other) and there is some evidence that certain allergies and dyslexia are passed along with the same genes (they are still working it out, but a certain gene “KIAA0319 has turned out to be involved with controlling the early development of the brain. It may also underlie the unfortunate tendency of the immune system of dyslexics to cause allergies, eczema etc.”). Someday, maybe people will figure out what causes immune deficiencies and allergies.
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My son’s immunologist explained it as genetics determine the size of your teacup (immune function). Viruses, stress, and unknown factors fill it up. And then some other unknown factor – genetic or viral or ??-- comes along and shakes the teacup and it overflows = an active immunological problem, disorder, or illness. We know, he would say, what is going wrong, but we don’t know why.
I’ve also heard it described as genetics load the gun, but life pulls the trigger.
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Some more recent data of vaccinated vs unvaccinated:
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This of course will not persuade many reluctant, but it is sad:
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/record-breaking-number-children-under-154922556.html